CASTELLANOS:
Well that spot sure did cause a lot of trouble didn't it. I'm very proud
of it. I believe every bit of it. You know, my name is Castellanos. My
son is named Castellanos. It may be, you know, one day he could get a
job or he could get some deal because he is of a some ethnic minority
and all of that. I hope he never does. I think that lessens you when you
do that.
The message in that spot's very clear and that is nobody should get a
job, or be denied a job because of the color of their skin. The vast majority
of Americans believe that. And if it's wrong for us to discriminate that
way it's wrong for our government to discriminate that way. Again, it's
freedom. Now it wasn't very politically correct to say at the time but
there's this, you know, you always get the assault logged against you
that there's something, you know, when a conservative Republican says
the same words that Martin Luther King says, somehow he's racist. And
I just don't buy that. I think you're proscribed from talking about quotas
and things like that because you're a, you're a white guy.
Q: It's not playing the race card?
CASTELLANOS: Again, if I can't, I
don't, I don't give a damn if I'm white, black, or whatever, if I can't
say that, that giving somebody a job or denying them a job because of
the color of their skin, if I can't say that's wrong, this is not America.
I believe that.
Q: Tell me a little about the technique
in that ad. The way in which you used hands, the color of the shirt, the
ring on the finger, those sorts of things.
CASTELLANOS: I'd like to think we
have an incredible amount of foresight and planning on this stuff but
actually with ten days to go this campaign was nine or ten points down.
And this was an issue that cut on a survey. And so what, wrote that spot
Saturday night. Produced it Sunday. Shipped it back to North Carolina
in a car Sunday night and had it on the air Monday noon. And the, the
guy in the checked shirt actually was the cameraman just because he happened
to be dressed right. I was running the camera. And we just flipped the
camera over to his ring side so we could see his wedding ring and again
let everybody know that there's a family depending on this. The piece
of paper he's taking out of his, unfolding is a piece we happened to find
in a desk drawer in one of the props, they had a prop desk so we just
kind of threw it together. What makes that ad is not technique, it's truth.
It says something big and true that Americans believe and that is you
shouldn't get a job or be denied a job because of the color of your skin.
Tell me you don't believe that.
In the North Carolina Senate campaign, Republican incumbent JESSE HELMS was several points behind Democrat HARVEY GANTT in polls taken shortly before the election.
